Man Holds Police at Bay, Ignites $2-Million Fire : Arson: Blaze destroys 10,000-square-foot Huntington Beach machine shop. Suspect arrested after menacing police with metal pipe.

HUNTINGTON BEACH — A Norwalk man held police at bay with a metal pipe Sunday, then set a fire that destroyed a 10,000-square-foot machine shop in an industrial park, causing $2 million in damage, authorities say.

Huntington Beach police arrested the 30-year-old arson suspect after a tense standoff at the scene, in the 15200 block of Pipeline Lane.

Police responded to a call before noon Sunday, reporting a man threatening another with a pipe. When they arrived, the man, identified as Jimmy Branch Blanco, fled to an unlocked commercial building, where he barricaded himself, brandishing a long metal pipe and threatening to kill anyone who approached him, officials said.

The police tried to talk him into surrendering, without success, according to Sgt. Gary Meza. Blanco then fled to a second-floor office of Santa Ana Gear & Machine Co., which is also identified as the Aero Bushing & Component Manufacturing Co., police said, where he found flammable liquid. After assembling flammable material in a pile, Blanco then ignited it.

As the fire spread to the building’s roof, police approached with fire extinguishers, but were blocked at the upstairs landing by Blanco, who was swinging the pipe wildly and screaming at the officers, police said. Soon the fire’s smoke and heat forced the police back, as the entire second floor was engulfed in flames.

Within several minutes, Blanco fled the building and was arrested and booked in the Huntington Beach City Jail on charges of arson and assault with a deadly weapon.

It took Huntington Beach firefighters, aided by units from Newport Beach, Westminster and Orange County, just over an hour to control the blaze. In all, 19 units and 50 firefighters were on the scene, including a hazardous materials unit.

At one point, a “backdraft”--an explosion of burning, oxygen-starved gases--inside the cinder-block structure blew out a large, sliding door, according to Division Chief Bill Cooper.

No firefighters were hurt in the explosion, Cooper said, because a backdraft is something “we never expect, but we always anticipate.”

One firefighter was struck by falling timber, but he did not require treatment.

Fire officials estimated the loss at $500,000 to the structure and $1.5 million for the contents, mostly machinery.